


Our Busy College Days

by penscritch



Series: Wizardess Heart collection [4]
Category: Shall We Date?: Wizardess Heart+
Genre: Art/drama!Luca, F/M, Straight-A!Elias, Taffy is a backpack, law student!Klaus, longsuffering MC, mad scientist!Randy, modern college au, mysterious like a ghost!Yukiya, oh gods this is eating my brain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4860920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penscritch/pseuds/penscritch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lena Cloudberg just wants to make it into veterinary school. Somehow Gedonelune University is making this very difficult. Including a law student who keeps drafting her into his TA work, his scientist friend who keeps trying to sabotage him in the name of SCIENCE, a classic panicking straight-A student, an artistic rebel, and that one guy who’s like a ghost. Seriously, no one notices him.</p><p>Also, someone’s ritualistically killing poultry on the green. No one knows if this should be filed under defacement of school property, art project gone mad, or ‘special’ religious needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A conspiracy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are chicken murders and a math class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Wizardess Heart shippers everywhere, with special thanks to those at gedonelune-romance.tumblr.com. Thanks for letting me know my prompt was interesting ASAP, therefore putting this turtle in high gear. :D
> 
> Please pretend that Gedonelune U is a very flexible institution and allows you to procrastinate until the very last year to declare your major. The fall semester of your last year, of course. (whispers, this is for you Elias!)

It began with the chickens.

“Ewwww,” Girls A, B, and C squealed upon seeing the bloody marks on the grass. The reportedly mutilated bodies of freshly-killed chickens had been removed and the area surrounded by yellow tape, but it was still pretty gruesome to imagine. The splatters of reddish-brown inspired some nasty images and for some reason focused around areas where there were irregular circles of white tape. That is, until Lena realized they outlined where the chicken bodies must have lain. Even the horror of that thought didn’t cut out the noisy girls behind her, though. It had been – what, three going on four years? – and Lena still couldn’t remember their names for the life of her. It was mean, but it was so hard to figure out which girl was which since all three were siblings and looked so alike. They’d kept up the tradition of following Elias around like high school groupies and liked to glare at Lena a lot even though she wasn’t interested in him. Elias was her friend and anyway, how could she even think about dating him when Klaus kept _looking_ at her that way and she –

Okay, that wasn’t a good way to start.

Elias had class with Lena today because they were both working on getting the next-to-last set of courses for their bachelor’s degrees completed. Core requirements were inescapable and being friends, they’d decided to register together for the one class they couldn’t escape to better endure their suffering. Sometimes Lena thought Professor Schuyler taught most of the beginning math courses because he got to scare the new students half to death. He certainly scared _her_ and she wasn’t even a new student _._

Behind them, Girl A shrilled, “Oh my god, Elias, please save us!”

“That’s right, our shining prince will rescue us!” said Girl B. Though those few years of acquaintance hadn’t given Lena any better memory for their names, she could imagine the adoration beaming from her face towards Elias without even turning around.

“I’m sure he’ll figure out which dastardly villain is behind this act! Oh, he’s sooo smart!” swooned Girl C as the others joined her in sighing romantically over this vision.

“Of course, that girl needs to go first,” said Girl B, narrowing her eyes at Lena.

Luckily, she and Elias had just managed to duck into the classroom so the girls had to give up their plan. Even they were scared of Professor Schuyler, though it didn’t stop them from giving Lena dirty looks as they sat in the back row, triple glares trying to bore through her like a pile driver. She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at them.

Instead, she walked over to her usual seat just in front of Yukiya by the window and greeted, “Hey, Yukiya,” as she slung off her bag and sat down. He just kind of a made an acknowledging grunt before he went back to staring outside. Typical Yukiya. The first time she met him, she’d almost sat on him because he was so quiet and still that it was hard to notice him. After she spluttered out her apology to him, she’d taken the window seat just before him and then Elias came over, as well as Luca, and their little group of friends had formed.

Really, it was just like the first class they shared together in freshmen year – minus Luca, of course. Who knew where _he_ ran off to when he wasn’t in class. Sitting in the front, Elias methodically brought out his pen and notebook and had already started to skim through last week’s notes in preparation for today’s lecture.

Not long after, the door opened and Professor Schuyler walked in. He never wore anything except black and today he looked especially forbidding in his black shirt and slacks as he thumped his black briefcase beside him.

He cast a sharp, assessing glance across the room and said, “As you must know already, another case involving mutilated chickens,” with a tone of disgust as though mutilating chickens was déclassé and nothing impressive, “was discovered this morning. The faculty is taking care of it, so I do not want to hear another word about it in my class. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir!” the students said.

“Good,” and then he took up a piece of chalk, scrawling an equation on the board.

Lena wanted to groan. Oh no, not factoring! She was okay at most things they learned in calculus so far, but factoring was still tough for her! She couldn’t quite imagine the numbers right in her head.

“Lena, what kind of equation is this?”

“Um!” she squeaked. Come on, come on… Lena squinted harder at the board.

“Difference of squares…?”

Professor Schuyler looked at her. Lena twitched.

“…Correct,” he said, as though bemused that she got something right. “If only you could do so well all the time, I would have no doubts about your passing this course.”

Awww, Professor Schuyler was really scary! And she’d even given the right answer this time!

The class passed in a mind-killing blur of numbers and symbols and fear of Professor Schuyler. Still, she didn’t forget what she’d been hearing these last couple of days in the hallways as students talked and gossiped. They all knew that it must be a student at this university who perpetrated the chicken killings and so far a lot of them, for some incomprehensible reason, seemed to believe that one of Lena’s friends had done it.

Elias, because he was the least likely suspect and didn’t that sort of thing happen in movies and books a lot? That the least likely person turned out to be the real culprit? Suspecting Luca, which all right, Lena had to admit he was really suspicious since he always skipped class and knew a lot of things that no one was supposed to know. But still, Luca wasn’t the malicious type even if he liked to prank people a lot. And Yukiya, who no one even knew existed since he was always so quiet and unnoticeable. They only knew his name because he was pretty high up in the GPA ranking for their year and no one could identify Yukiya by sight. That wasn’t fair to him either, since Yukiya was probably one of the nicest people Lena had ever met.

Though the most bemusing suspect by far was Klaus. Lena knew firsthand he was far too busy doing TA paperwork and filling in for the professors to do something as ridiculous as slaughtering chickens on the green. Not to mention the fact that Klaus hated it when people did terrible things for no other reason than that they could – he’d caught one of the rich noble kids, the kind who rode on his parents’ coattails, trying to molest a poorer student once and immediately written him up for expulsion from the school. The scary thing was, for all the parents’ arguments, the faculty had listened to Klaus in the end and expelled the student. Everyone trusted Klaus because he held himself so strictly to his principles and never expected anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.

Really, none of it made any sense.

Lena’s brows scrunched up as she bundled her things back into her bag. It wasn’t right that someone went around killing poor innocent birds that hadn’t harmed anyone and she didn’t like that some of her friends were getting suspected of having done it when they weren’t the type to do it at all.

“Ugh,” Lena said, before stuffing her stationery in her bag and exiting the door. She had a TA to visit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, please pretend this is a universe that is almost identical to ours except people can have naturally weird hair and eye colors. So Klaus and Elias still have purple eyes and Luca is a leprechaun. *cough, had a hard time imagining Luca with, say, brown hair and gave up, cough*
> 
> This fic is like an alien parasite and _won't stop growing_. I guess I'm posting in chapters from now on, so you all get something to enjoy while I'm stuck at later portions of the fic. XD


	2. The TA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena visits Klaus at his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am _so_ sorry for the late update, but I had writer's block galore. It was extremely frustrating. Thank you for your patience and I hope you all enjoy. :)

Lena met Klaus in a very unfortunate series of events at the beginning of her fourth year as an undergraduate. She’d woken up late that morning and missed at least half her classes for the day – a situation that came about because she had been working overtime on her paper the night before – and tripped coming down the dormitory stairs. The only class she could possibly make it to on time for was Professor Schuyler’s calculus class and he tolerated tardiness almost as little as he tolerated absences. So it was with scraped knees, bedhead, and a misbuttoned shirt that she sprinted her way to the classroom while praying that she would somehow manage to make it within the five minutes left.

Lena was convinced she’d escaped the worst of her mishaps until in her hurry, she smashed straight into a student coming around the corner. Papers flew and something wet sloshed around on the floor. When she looked up from where she’d landed on hard stone, she found herself staring up at a very annoyed (and very tall) male student who held a recycled-paper tray on which a lone coffee cup tilted precariously while his other hand had been braced on the wall for balance.

“I-I’m sorry!” she squeaked. The splotch of brown on his white shirt led her horrified gaze to the other three coffee cups rolling on the ground and the stained bundle of papers and then back up to his face.

She nearly whimpered when she saw the expression on his face. S-Scary!

Then Lena remembered Professor Schuyler’s class and abruptly went white. She didn’t see the startled look on Klaus’ face as he observed the change, too preoccupied with _missing Professor Schuyler’s class_ and darted up.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said hurriedly, grabbing her bag where it’d fallen and stuffing what she could inside. “Oh dear, oh dear! I’m going to be late!”

And she ran off, never realizing that she’d left behind a notebook. A notebook that had her name written on the inside cover, as was her habit in case any of her things got lost. Klaus tracked her down with it later, ambushing her after class with one of his shadowy polite smiles and a firm insistence that she should make it up to him. It turned out that he had been preparing a conference room for an important meeting between the professors and only two things saved him from utter disgrace. Firstly, that he never did things late (and he placed a special emphasis on the word “late” in a way that made Lena cringe guiltily) and secondly, that he had the means and the ability to change his clothes and procure new documents before the meeting began. (Or in Lena’s words, bullied some people into doing his bidding)

She’d only found out later that he was, in fact, the infamous “Emperor” whispered about by students in the law department and those particularly ambitious students who looked up to the standard of excellence he upheld. And, that he was Elias’ older brother. Wow, the surprise she’d gotten when she’d been sulkily shelving books and files in Klaus’ TA office and in walked Elias, who’d come to ask his brother for help on his homework.

 

Klaus kind of grew on you the more you knew him, and since then Lena had shared more than one commiserating conversation or look with Elias over Klaus’… Klaus-ness. Sure, he had a really sharp tongue and always said what he thought as though he was indisputably right (which he was, almost all the time) but he was also one of the most dependable people Lena knew.

She knew that if anyone knew what was up with this chicken business, he would.

 

She knocked politely on the door, and entered when a “Come in,” came from inside. The room was unusually large for a TA’s office (though to tell the truth, Lena didn’t know of any other TAs who had managed to get their own office), large enough for the old-fashioned oak desk that Klaus favored at one end and a couch with its accompanying coffee table on the other. On the wall opposite the door were two long windows on either side of a small fireplace. Since it wasn’t winter yet, no fire was lit and only the sunlight streaming through the glass illuminated the space.

Klaus sat at the desk, scanning some document he was working on with a frowning face. He looked up when he heard her come in and briefly gestured her to the pile of books to be shelved. Lena’s shoulders slumped.

So he was busy, then. He wouldn’t be able to answer any questions until later.

She couldn’t help a little sigh as she looked at the shelves built into the walls, all filled with _books_. She liked books, but when you had to sort through them almost every day, it got a little tiring. The sorting, not the books. It wasn’t like she could read them while she put them back to make things interesting. Worse, most of the titles said boring things like “Business Law,” “Reports for Fiscal Year ----,” or “The Judiciary Committee: Its History and Practices.”

“Tired already? You haven’t even started.”

Klaus’ eyebrow was raised as he sat back in his chair, pausing in his work to look at her through his reading glasses.

“You’d be bored too if you had to do the same thing all the time,” she grumbled.

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

“What?” Lena stared at him.

His lips quirked. “I thought I told you. I did everything by myself before you came along.”

“Th-Then why—“

“Because you’re amusing. Obviously.”

“Ugh…” For a moment, she thought he was going to say something else, something that made her heart beat faster in anticipation. Stupid heart, she scolded it. Stop beating like that! There’s no reason to act that way.

The humorous, almost warm look in his eyes passed and returned to their usual half-mocking expression.

“You’re even more distracted than usual,” he observed. “What is it?”

Well, if it meant less work… And he did ask.

“What’s up with the chickens?” Lena said. “The ones that got found on the green. I woke up this morning and found a lot of tape around the area. It was really weird.”

“Maybe someone got hungry?”

“Klaus!”

He smirked at her. “No one knows. However, it’s not the first time it’s happened. Past incidents have occurred in town, especially in parks like the Spring of Unicorns. The faculty and police think it’s a student living in the dorms who gradually gained the courage to move their activities closer to where they live. Namely, on campus.”

“Oh.” She frowned.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he said.

“But the rumors –“

“Mean nothing,” he finished. “I assure you, Elias can take care of himself. Your friends are quite capable as well. I believe Orlem knows fencing and regularly practices it for his drama club.”

“I’m worried about _you_!” she burst out.

Startled, he looked at her. Really looked. Her hands were trembling slightly from where they were fisted at her sides and her gaze downcast. There was a stubborn tilt to her chin.

He sighed and rose from his chair.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the couch. She sat. Klaus walked to the tea set at the other end of the coffee table and reached for the thermos. He poured the hot water into the teapot and let it steep, before sitting down next to her.

She was staring at her clasped hands, stubbornly refusing to look at him. That mulishness had its charms – her determination to work hard was one aspect – but right now he wanted her to look at him. “What makes you think I’m in trouble?” he asked, making sure his voice was neutral.

She bit her lip, but accepted the steaming cup of tea he handed to her.

He waited patiently for her to gather herself together. Eventually, some reluctantly approving sips of tea later she said, “Everyone’s saying they think you might have done it too.” And in an uncharacteristic temper, she added, “It’s stupid.”

Klaus couldn’t help the fond smile crossing his lips. She was so loyal to her friends. He knew she considered him one, but hearing her defend him so vehemently touched him deeply.

“It’s really not,” he said, taking a sip from his own cup. “I took a course on Penal Law, which you might know as Criminal Law. I wrote a thesis on cult behavior, so I’m well-versed in the subject. The award I received for it says as much.”

She perked up slightly.

“Really?” she asked, fascinated.

“Really,” he said. “Though why I’d waste my time killing chickens of all things escapes me.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Lena nodded confidently. “You have way too much work.”

He watched her, amused at her certainty. Not many people knew him well enough to know and believe in him so fiercely. If Klaus had his way this incident with the chickens would be wrapped up soon before it started truly affecting the lives of the students on campus. It wasn’t something he could guarantee, but he could at least assuage Lena’s anxieties about his safety. Before the worry could creep back into her eyes, he said abruptly, “Don’t worry about me.”

“W-What?” she stammered, taken aback by the change.

“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m working with the faculty and police to find the culprit. They know I’m not the one doing it.”

“O-Oh…” she said, looking visibly relieved.

That was… really cute.

He cleared his throat. “Speaking of work…”

She squeaked, startled. “I’ll get the books!”

He couldn’t help smiling as she darted around his office, shoving books in place like a brown hummingbird.

He returned his own cup to its saucer and placed it on the table, standing.

It was time he got to work as well.

 

The sun slid through the windows, honey-gold when they left the office. Lena was bundled up in in a thick pea coat and fluffy scarf, waiting as he locked the door.

“I am _not_ a bunnyhead!” she huffed.

Klaus snorted. “You almost quoted the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland verbatim and you have _those_ ,” he gestured at her pigtail braids, which she grabbed defensively. So what if they were large and soft, not unlike rabbit ears? “I have all the justification I need to call you a bunny if I want.”

She scowled. Ooooh, just see if she wouldn’t get him back one of these days…

Anyway, what was it to him? She really liked that book as a kid!

Klaus smirked at her, though there was a softness to it that made her heart flutter briefly. She placed a hand over her chest. It was doing that a lot lately, usually when she was around Klaus. It didn’t feel bad, so she didn’t think much about it.

Klaus’s thoughts were about how much like a bunny she looked right now. Half-muffled in coat, scarf, and gloves, her indignation didn’t make her look any less small and cute. He was suddenly aware of the earlier nightfall as autumn transitioned into winter. It wasn’t a good thing for a girl to be out late and he’d rather have her in her room before it turned truly dark, even if there wasn’t some nut wandering around killing poultry.

“Get back to your room,” he said, not ungently. “It’s getting dark.”

Lena peeked up at him with those startlingly warm eyes of hers and smiled. It was oddly sincere and it took his breath away.

She was beautiful.

“Thanks, Klaus,” she said. It was as though she’d heard his concern and answered it. She turned, spinning her bag in a little half-circle with her and called over her shoulder, “See you tomorrow!”

“See you,” he echoed, watching her go with a skip in her step.

He was surprised he managed to sound normal because it felt like something had clutched violently in his heart at the sight of her smile, like a foundation had been shaken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hopes really hard I can get another chapter up before Christmas*


	3. Extra: Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena rummages around and finds something interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For _robancrow’s_ Santa ‘Klaus’ prompt. For more information, see this URL: http://robancrow.tumblr.com/post/127445094489/wizardessheartdrabbles-headcanon-relative-to-your. Also, this takes place sometime after the whole chicken-killing mess in the main timeline of this fic so Lena is in the veterinary program already and Klaus is almost finished with his law degree.

When she finished helping Klaus out with whatever he needed done, Lena liked to rummage around the secret drawers and shelves and cabinets in Klaus’ office. There were a lot of them and it excited the little girl in her – it was a lot like a treasure hunt because she frequently found new things every time. Some of it belonged to the people who previously used the office, like someone named François Burgundy, whose name was written in cursive across the inside cover of a book on the Hundred Years’ War. It had been missing from the library for fifty years. And some of it belonged to Klaus, like a second pair of reading glasses he had secreted away in a drawer in case his usual pair broke or a fountain pen he’d received as a gift from the eldest Goldstein brother. Lena knew that the only reason Klaus liked to keep some of his private things here was that his office was unexpectedly secure, being on the second floor of the administration building (which was surrounded by cameras and boasted the best security system on campus) and only accessible if you had the key. Klaus had the only key.

Amazingly, Klaus had no work for her for once. It wasn’t that there wasn’t any work to be done, only that what he needed to do today was finicky and not the kind of thing she could help out with. She wasn’t good at reading contracts and had no interest in finagling the financial reports into looking good. So Lena took her time to rummage around the room. She had a particular object in mind this time. She was looking for the photo album she knew Klaus liked to keep in one of the cabinets when she found a sheaf of papers in a plain manila folder.

“Hmm?”

She sneaked a peak at Klaus. He was scowling down at the documents like they’d offended him and he was planning to take revenge times ten on them. So he was busy and so concentrated on his work that he’d displeased if she distracted him for something small like this.

Anyway, Klaus did always tell her that as lovers -- she blushed -- they didn’t need to hide things from each other. It looked more like some piece of paperwork they’d somehow missed filing than something really private, so she took a deep breath and opened the folder.

She blinked when she saw the first line, and blinked again. She leaned closer, squinting at the spidery scrawl. It was… very bad handwriting. Surprisingly bad.

Lena had a lot of trouble figuring out what it said but managed to make sense of it. Thank goodness for her experience with the kids in her hometown.

‘Deer Santa,’ it read. ‘I hav ben a good boy this yeer and Mama tels meee that means I get a present. Klaus ses you read letters and I shud rite to you wat I want. I like dogs and I want a puppy please. I will be gud forever and ever if I get one. Thank you and I hope my grammer is okay.

Elias Goldstein.’

Lena stared, then pressed a hand to her mouth. Oh. That.

She realized she was grinning like an idiot and pressed her hand to her mouth harder to stifle the urge to coo rising in her throat.

That was so adorable!

Quickly, she flipped the page over and started on the next letter. The grammar, if not the handwriting, had improved.

It was still addressed to Santa, but this time it sounded distinctly like Elias had found out that Santa never existed. A heavily scratched-out line failed to hide the words, ‘ruined Christmas for me’ which sounded like something Klaus might have done – she’d bet he never fell for the Santa Claus thing when he was young and doubted he had the tact to hold back his tongue then, not that he was much better now – but the last sentence caught at her heart and made her smile even more helplessly. In the same scratchy way as the first attempt at concealment, she could make out the last line, which said ‘but you’re better than Santa because you’re my big brother.’

She had to stuff her fist in her mouth to restrain her glee.

“What idiotic thing are you getting up to now?” asked a voice behind her.

“Eeep!” she squealed, jumping up from her seat.

Klaus looked down at her, glasses still perched on his nose. His hair was a little messy and looked like he’d run his fingers through it. He must have decided to take a break.

Then he looked down at the folder and the most extraordinary expression crossed his face.

Baffled, Lena peered at him.

Wait, was he…

He was. He was blushing.

A wide smile overtook her face, and Klaus turned his face to the side to avoid looking at her directly as he snapped, “What?!”

She giggled.

“I think it’s cute,” she admitted, unable to stop smiling or keep it from turning tender. To think Klaus kept so many of Elias’ things for so long and in such good condition too.

Speechless for once but not displeased, Klaus rubbed a hand down his face. “I can’t believe you.”

He sat down next to her and took the folder, the corners of his lips turning up as he flipped through the letters.

“What are these?” she asked.

“Letters to Santa Claus, as you can see, but meant for me,” Klaus said. “Elias needed the practice. His spelling was terrible and his handwriting worse.”

Lena wanted to wince but it was true. Very, very true.

“He’s a lot better now?” she hedged.

“Of course,” Klaus said, a hint of pride entering his voice.

Then Lena realized the sheer number of letters. If there was one letter for every Christmas, this was a bit much. “Wait, there’re more letters than there are Christmases!”

“I’m surprised you noticed.”

Lena crossed her arms, mock-indignant. “Of course I did.”

It didn’t hide the dimples in her cheeks and Klaus smiled at her fondly. “I suppose.”

His gaze turned back to the papers. One looked like it had been crumpled before it had been straightened out by a careful hand. Some parts looked a little blotty, like water damage.

“I’ve always believed in Elias,” he said simply, smoothing out a slight wrinkle. “But it can be hard for him to believe in himself.”

Sometimes it was difficult to face Klaus head on. Lena knew that he could be really harsh and it was tough sometimes to hear him say uncomfortable truths. She thought she could maybe understand why Elias might need to write what he wanted to say rather than speak them, with a codename of sorts too. And out of everyone in the Goldstein family, Elias seemed closest to Klaus. The brothers had a strong bond.

“I see,” Lena said.

“Elias doesn’t know I still have these, so don’t tell him,” Klaus said, skimming through another letter. By the quality of the handwriting, it looked like it was written by the present Elias.

“I wouldn’t,” she reassured him. Lena still thought it was very cute but no doubt Elias would be mortified that she knew.

Klaus nodded once, after seeing that she was sincere in her promise. He picked up the folder and flipped through the pages, smiling nostalgically as he skimmed their contents. He stopped when he found the one he was looking for, drawing it out to show to Lena.

“This one was written when Elias was seven and he wanted to slide down the banisters...”

Lena burrowed into his side. Without pausing, he put his arm around her to draw her close as he read the letter out loud. Contentedly, she let his voice wash over her as she imagined two little boys in a grand house getting into all sorts of mischief, one older and protective and the other young and eager, trusting.

She had no trouble at all envisioning their adventures because, well, weren’t they doing what they’d always done right from the beginning?


End file.
